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I think Tomlin may be a better coach than Noll. It's a different era now. Noll didn't have to deal with FA, changing players, coaches, etc. Noll didn't have to worry about the salary cap. He didn't have to deal with the media or twitter. We didn't know every last decision he made wrong like we know about everyone today. Noll didn't have to manage players who have $100M contracts.

Noll's Steelers had other advantages, like the draft because everything was secret. Nowadays everyone has the same info on the college kids. We can't hide a John Stallworth from the rest of the teams any more. There wasn't drug testing back in the day. Noll got the best players and the rules helped him. Football is a round the year sport now and the competition is fair and talent exists everywhere.

Noll has rings. But I don't think he's ever come close to facing the challenges Tomlin faces and overcomes yearly. I see a lot of Noll in Tomlin. But the game has changed so much, it's nearly impossible to compare them.

I think it's easier to compare Noll to Cowher or Cowher to Tomlin, but Noll and Tomlin coached in completely different leagues.

Sometimes I actually think Cowher was better than both of them. He just never had a QB until the end. I've wondered would Cowher have gotten more than 4 SuperBowls with Terry? Maybe, maybe not. I do think there's a lot of luck and timing involved with success. We usually give too much credit to winners and not enough to losers. That's never changed and probably never will.

I haven't read over the entire thread and just power skimmed the linked article but here is my opinion on why Tomlin didn't put batch in the game. First and foremost if he had put Batch in the game and he himself got injured where are we right now? We're rushing Brian Hoyer to be ready for a two game stint against division opponents. The game was close and I'm certain that Leftwich indicated he could make it through the game. Our defense was playing lights out and really it was just a matter of a couple of completions in the 4th to put the game away. Batch didn't go in IMO because if he had and he got injured we'd be even more screwed. I'm not sure why more people aren't seeing it this way. EDIT: I see Flippy feels the same. I had a small facebook discussion with a few friends on Monday, Tomlin made the correct decision. We get another crack at the Ravens soon, we're without our starting QB and we took them to the wire. Stay as healthy as possible and prepare to beat the Browns and the Ravens the second time out. We could very well need batch the rest of the regular season. It was the ONLY choice to keep Batch out of the game.

There is NO way you can even say at this point in time that Tomlin is a better coach than ever Cowher. NO WAY. Only time well tell. And personally, we'll really see what Tomlin can do here in say the next 3-5 years... I always thought that Tomlin's true colors will be seen once he's fully into his 2nd contract. Simply because of losing all of the older players he had to begin with and we'd see how his coaching staff would evolve.

Flippy said: "Noll's Steelers had other advantages, like the draft because everything was secret. Nowadays everyone has the same info on the college kids. We can't hide a John Stallworth from the rest of the teams any more."

Actually,BLESTO was there in the early 70's. It was just that other teams did not take advantage of the info for some reason or other. I do recall reading this somewhere.

I have never commented on Tomlin one way or another. Why should I? I have no idea what a good or bad coach is anyhow. Maybe MT should loosen up though and spend $19.95 and get a copy of Doc Curealls "Guide to two minute strategies." Yeah, I caught a glimpse of this on one of those late night TV infomercials.Oh incidentally, they throw in a free copy of "Why the "spike" is not a good idea".

As soon as I read the part about the author knowing more about Todd Haley's quick release offense than the Mike Tomlin I stopped reading. There was a graphic during the game showing Ben's release and Leftwich's release along with speed of the football. Ben releases the ball exactly 3/100 of second quicker than Leftwich and Leftwich has about 3 MPH more speed on the ball, which basically negates the 3/100 of a second.

I'm sure Batch's release is somewhere between Ben's and Lefty's and his velocity is certainly the slowest of all. The right quarterback played the game and the right quarterback finished the game. Now, had the author said, that Haley's offense is predicated on quicker decisions and that Batch can make quicker decisions based on coverage, protection and route trees then I can buy into the wrong quarterback played. But to try and make an argument against Tomlin over 3/100 of a second and 3 MPH is ridiculous.

Tomlin made the right decision and I believe that the majority of coaches make the exact same decision given the situation.

What I didn't like and I'm not sure who made the call was the 3rd and 2 pass that Wallace couldn't corral and get his feet down in the field of play. With the way the defense was playing I would have run Dwyer on 3rd and 2, if he makes it great, move on and try to score a touchdown; if he doesn't make it, I run with him again on 4th down, if he makes it great, move on and try to score a touchdown, if he doesn't make it, that's okay, it's 1st and 10 on 4 yard line for an offense that couldn't string together 3 good offensive plays all night. The Steelers would have in all likelihood gotten the ball back near midfield.

And there's probably a few other things I've left off the list because there's so many. And Mikey T overcomes all of that and is now fielding a team that looks like a real contender. And we're gonna lay the blame for this game on him????

Perhaps Mike knew he couldn't afford to risk Charlie and potentially not have him against the Browns this week. Whatever it was, I have a hard time blaming Tomlin for much given what I witness the guy overcome.

Other teams lose 1 or 2 key players and their season is toast. Not a Mike Tomlin team. We can compete with our 3rd stringers. And the standard remains the standard. And we're fielding a legit contender.

This is some of the best coaching in Steeler history. And we're lucky to be able to see it.

the majority of stuff on that list could be the direct result of tomlins coaching, decisions and player personnel you know.